Black Peter (Milos Forman, 1964)
A criminally overlooked adolescent/coming-of-age gem of a film which is also one of my two favorite Forman films. If you like Show Me Love/F*cking Amal, The 400 Blows, Gregory's Girl, Il Posto (by my count only roujin and I have seen that gem; shame of you, folks, calling yourselves film lovers!), or Flirting, you need to give Forman's film a chance. Whenever I watch it, it transports me to my teenage years. It's also a funny film that puts a huge smile on my face. The "Ahoy" sequence is one of the funniest I've ever seen. The DVD subtitles are off or dropped on occasion, but not so much that watching the film is a ruined experience. Might return with some screenshots of my own. And who can turn down watching a film with a dancing sequence like this?:
Milos Forman - Cerny Petr (1964)
The second film I want all Filmspotters to check out before the deadline is:
La Haine
Kassovitz, Mathieu 1995 France
The previous Top 100s are lacking in films with multiple non-Caucasian protagonists or films that take place in such characters' milieus. (And most of the ones that did make the lists take place in Japan or Hong Kong.) Now I see that
Do the Right Thing received 13 votes last year and placed in the Top 100 and
La Haine got 4. I urge those that those that have seen the Spike Lee film to watch Kassovitz's.
La Haine follows three French males during a 24-hour period in the wake of riots in response to police brutality. It's fierce stuff. And I'm not pushing for this film just to get variety into the list. I genuinely think it's a great film. Most importantly for many of you, it's a part of the
Criterion Collection. Here's a [noembed]
trailer[/noembed] and the well-known [noembed]
aerial shot[/noembed].
And I'll just throw in a third film:
A beautiful film of childhood vignettes structured by emotional and associational editing. There are also instances of moviegoing, dialogue snippets from films such as
The Magnificent Ambersons and
Kind Hearts and Coronets, and lovely use of music. The film also has perhaps my favorite montage sequence of all time. See screenshots
here.